March: A grimmer vision of Little Women (#8)

When I was home in late May, I was excited to get a couple of books of out of the library that I can't get here, ending up with Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (Laurie Viera Rigler) and Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, in addition to Geraldine Brooks' Pulitzer Prize-winning March. I'd had March on my to-read list for a couple of years, but I never got around to it. And when I was home, it was once again at the bottom of the pile; I started both of the other two, but as it turned out, I couldn't get into either -- Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict was un-fun fluff and the tone of Bel Canto, which seemed akin to reading a Woody Allen movie, put me off. So, after many years of good intentions, I finally started March.

March takes its title from the last name of the main character, the much-missed father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, imagining what his experience was like as a chaplain during the Civil War, the cause of his absence in Alcott's book. The novel starts out after a devastating battle, and basically, because of a chance encounter with a woman named Grace, a former slave, that he had met as a young man, he starts to remember his past. The book alternates between his reawakened memories and his present circumstances in the Union army, and March struggles to stay true to his family and his own highly held values while existing/surviving in his wartime reality.

March is an incredibly well-written book but I can't say that I loved it, mostly because I didn't like Mr. March all that much. Generally the main character in a novel -- the hero, if you will -- will learn something about themselves and the world, growing and changing in the process, but I don't think he did, not really. March is incredibly selfish from the start and enjoys playing the martyr, while not seeing the hardships he puts upon others, especially his family. I think this is what bothered me most about him, and the novel in general -- in Little Women, his wife Marmee and their daughters Meg, Jo, Amy and Beth miss him so much and have to make so many sacrifices in his absence, and it turns out, in this telling, that he's a selfish bastard who didn't really deserve it. He never honors the individuality of his wife or makes an effort to truly connect to or understand her. He’s so willing to help others, but never really his family; he always sacrifices them to the bigger cause, while they sacrifice themselves for him. And this never changes.

He also doesn't get himself up from hardship. Since he feels that he's shamed himself (by not winning an unwinnable situation), he refuses to go home, saying his work is not done, that others died or were taken back as slaves because he was not "brave enough." But really, he's choosing the easier path, one where he doesn't have to tell the truth to those he loves, as well as giving into his fondness for playing the martyr. In the end, he's literally forced to go back to his family. Grace has to reject him for him to go home, and John Brooke has to physically bring him back, gripping his arm as they make their way to the house. He doesn’t choose it and he doesn’t change.

But most importantly, he never has to atone for his initial stifling and later betrayal of Marmee. This is why he doesn't want to go home -- if he stays away, he doesn't have to tell her about his entire past or reveal the untruths written in his letters. But in the end, he doesn't really have to say anything. Marmee figures it out for herself and basically just decides to understand after she realizes it’s hard to write the truth when she’s writing to the girls, and she wants to keep the family together. She learns something, but he doesn't.

I am really not sure why Geraldine Brooks chose to write Mr. March this way. He's fairly passive and ineffectual, making him a weak character as things happen to him, when he should really be the one instigating the events of the novel. My only guess is that she's trying to reflect the harsh realities of war -- he's broken by what he's seen and done, and that can't be fixed. I suppose in this novel, the main character did change, but instead of growing, he shrank, ultimately making March the protagonist, but not a hero.

A Game of Thrones is really about Turks

There was a funny story about Game of Thrones in a Turkish newspaper earlier in the month. Supposedly (and this is a very important word for stories concerning the military's bad behavior),  officers at a school in Izmir showed the series to a group of teenage boys in an English-language class at a military academy. After they'd wrapped up the lessons, 10 weeks later, someone anonymously complained about it, saying Game of Thrones "involved 'corrupted and perverted' sex scenes and depicted Turks as 'a barbarian tribe with perverted religious rituals'."

It's really unfortunate because the parts with the Turks were my favorites. I think everyone was drawn to how they -- oh, wait a minute, I must be thinking of something else BECAUSE THERE ARE NO TURKS IN GAME OF THRONES. My only guess is that someone decided the Dothraki were the Turks (of nearly 1,000 years ago) in disguise and got their panties twisted into a bunch. 

According to this story, nine officers were accused of sexual abuse and "insulting Turkishness," which is in fact against the law in Turkey. The charges were dismissed until the Minister of Defense personally overruled the charges, and supposedly this ridiculous case is in progress.

The Diary of Anne Frank: A classic and yet not literature (#7)

Sex, drugs, tulips and Rembrandt: Those are the words I had always associated with Amsterdam, and not being much into prostitution, pot or the art of the Dutch Golden Age, I had never had the urge to visit. But then I had a very straight-laced friend who went there and absolutely loved it, and I began to reassess my position. I resolved to go, one day -- but it never came near the top 5 on my travel list, so there Amsterdam stayed, as a one-day-I'll-go trip, joining locales like India and China, places I seriously intend to get to, but someday. (And cue the Black Eyed Peas...)

Fast-forward about a decade: One day, someday, arrived. This past spring, during tulip season, we took a long weekend and journeyed to Amsterdam. Our goal was to see all the major sights, which included, of course, the Anne Frank House.

Like all good American schoolchildren, I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was a kid, though I don't remember anything specific about the experience, just a generally favorable impression. So, I decided to read the book again. Now I realize why you should read it when you're a kid, and only when you're a kid: You can appreciate her experience without question. Because as an adult and a more critical reader, the diary presents some icky issues.

Anne Frank was German, but her family had moved to Holland when she was quite young to escape the Nazis' growing influence. Her father gifted her with the famous diary on her 13th birthday, in June 1942, shortly before the family went into hiding. She decides to call her diary Kitty -- she declares that it will be her one true friend, which she feels she doesn’t have. But for that, she seems to be a pretty carefree kid, and she doesn't hold much back in her writing. The family went into hiding in early July; they were shortly joined by another family, the van Pels (van Daan in the diary), and a dentist friend, Fritz Pfeffer (Albert Dussel). Anne spent the next two years chronicling their time in the Secret Annex. Her last diary entry comes on Aug. 1, 1944; the police came to arrest them three days later.

That description sounds very serious, and the situation  of course was very serious, but the truth is, the diary for the most part is not. In fact, as I was reading The Diary of Anne Frank, I couldn't help but think of the opening moments of the film Eat, Pray, Love. In voiceover, the character Elizabeth (Julia Roberts) says: "I have a friend, Deborah, a psychologist, who was asked by the city of Philadelphia if she could offer psychological counseling to a group of Cambodian refugees, boat people, who had recently arrived in the city. Deborah was daunted by the task. These Cambodians had suffered genocide, starvation, relatives murdered before their eyes, years in refugee camps, harrowing boat trips to the West…how could she relate to their suffering, how could she help these people? So guess what all these people wanted to talk about with my friend Deborah, the psychologist. It was all, I met this guy in the refugee camp, I thought he really loved me but when we got separated on the boat, he took up with my cousin, but now he says he really me, he keeps calling me, they’re married now – what should I do? I still love him. This is how we are."

And this is how the diary is.

As a piece of history and a record of what a certain group of people went through during World War II, Anne Frank's diary is irreplaceable. And yet, the diary is hardly at all about the war or the Secret Annex. Rather, it captures this unique moment in time of this young life. While it's well-written, as a piece of literature, it's not great -- it's childish. Which is not surprising as it's the innermost thoughts of a burgeoning teenager. In truth, Anne has a bit of an attitude, and I didn't find her to be terribly likeable. She's constantly complaining about being reprimanded, and she goes on and on about how she doesn't love her mother and how much she dislikes the van Daans and Dussel. The diary eventually shifts to her sexual awakening, which, being without any options, manifests as a growing attraction for Peter van Daan, who was a couple of years older than she was. As a teenger's diary, it's all fine, but it's hardly War and Peace.

But the thing is, Anne Frank's diary was never supposed to be literature -- and this is where it starts to get icky. Anne Frank wrote her diary for herself,  and it was obviously VERY personal; while she intended to publish something after the war, it wasn’t this. But she didn't survive the war to write the novel she intended; in the end, her father, the only survivor of the group, decided to publish her recovered diary. And it begs the question: Should we be reading it?

I don't know what the answer is.

A Song of Ice and Fire (#5, 6, 9): The stuff of obsession

There's this series of fantasy books called A Song of Ice and Fire -- have you heard of it? Hahaha, of course you have. Courtesy of the HBO adaptation Game of Thrones, I think everyone by now has heard of it, but I'm sure I'm not alone in admitting that I'd only heard of it because of the series. And as a good little read-the-book-before-you-see-the-movie type, that's just what I did -- and now I'm kind of obsessed. I've even dreamt about Joffrey, waking myself up swinging my arm around like I had a sword in it.

I've seen the series (which currently stands at five books, with another two planned) described as having three principal story lines -- the fight between various powerful families over the Iron Throne, and the attempted of exiled princess Daenerys Targaryen to regain that throne, which her father held, and the threat from the supernatural Others who live beyond the protective Wall in the North. But I think A Song of Ice and Fire is much simpler than that -- it's the epic tale of the Stark family, the principle nobles in the North, who are torn apart in books one and two and are trying to make their way back together. They're the heroes of the books, the good guys -- and even though a number of them have been murdered by the end of book three and all seems lost, they're the ones you're rooting for. Everyone else -- and there are a LOT of 'em -- is just a part of that, affecting how that (presumed) resolution and reunion happens. 

After an encounter between some men of the Night's Watch and the Others, book one, A Game of Thrones, begins at Winterfell, home to Eddard Stark, his wife Catelyn, their five children Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon, plus Ned's bastard son Jon Snow. During Catelyn's narration (each chapter is narrated from the point-of-view of a various character), we find out that the king's right-hand man (appropriately called the Hand) has died, and the king and his party are on their way to Winterfell, a fateful trip that will change all of their lives. Ned will be asked by King Robert, his closest friend, to be his new Hand, and come live at the palace in King's Landing, and after he discovers some royal secrets, he attracts the queen's ire, bringing the Starks in direct conflict with House Lannister, one of the realm's most powerful and ruthless families. (In fact, one of the messages in this series is that ruthlessness equals power.)

That's all I'll really say about the plot, so as not to ruin it for y'alls. By the end of book one, the Stark family has taken a direct hit, and a war over the throne erupts. But, like all good heroes, the Starks will spend these books having their notions about goodness and honor tested, and they will go through horrific situations on their road to getting back to each other. Martin seems to support this interpretation; he told The Atlantic, "With the general construction of the books, in some ways I took the Lord of the Rings as my model. Tolkien begins very small, in the Shire with Bilbo's birthday party, and from there, the characters all accumulate. ... But then at a certain point, they begin to go separate ways... You get this sense of everyone being together, and then the world gets bigger and bigger. My scheme is very similar to that. We begin in Winterfell, and everyone except Daenerys is in Winterfell, even characters that don't belong there, like Tyrion. And they set off together and then they begin to split. ... It has always been my intent, as with the Lord of the Rings, that eventually it would curve around and they would start moving back together."

Overall, the series is a grim one -- Martin has absolutely no compunction about killing off main characters, and in the most horrible ways, and by the end of book three, I'd say about 70 percent of the main characters have bit it, through beheadings, poisonings, massacres, and even a crossbow in the groin. As for the main characters that have managed to survive, almost all of them are in a place unknown to the others, some presumed dead. Book three is actually an interesting place to stop for a review, because the first three books make up a good unit; at this point, the series isn't resolved (clearly) but a lot of the story lines have been "wrapped up," in the sense that the remaining characters have come through their storms and are in a safer place. There are more trials to come, judging from what's already been, but they've hit a welcome lull.

For me, it was also welcome. I read A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings (book two) one after the other, took a two-week break to read two other books, and then read A Storm of Swords (book three) while watching Games of Thrones season 2. So book three ended up being a good place to stop...at least for a little awhile.

To read or not to read: 50 Shades of Grey

I'm trying to decide whether or not to read 50 Shades of Grey, and I am genuinely conflicted. On the one hand, I think it's important to read what the masses are reading -- I think that's part of the definition of being well-read -- and with the author having earned a reported $20 million paycheck, the masses have clearly read and spoken. So with that thought in mind, I put myself down in my library's request system for 50 Shades of Grey, resolved to read it. All I'd really heard about it was that it was an erotica version of Twilight, but even more poorly written -- which is what was giving me pause, as we all know how I felt about the ending of that series, but still, I was resolved.

And then, by chance the other day, I came across a teeny excerpt (beware -- naughty words ahead): “Does this mean you’re going to make love to me tonight, Christian?” Holy shit. Did I just say that? His mouth drops open slightly, but he recovers quickly. “No, Anastasia it doesn’t. Firstly, I don’t make love. I fuck… hard. Secondly, there’s a lot more paperwork to do, and thirdly, you don’t yet know what you’re in for. You could still run for the hills. Come, I want to show you my playroom.” My mouth drops open. Fuck hard! Holy shit, that sounds so… hot. But why are we looking at a playroom? I am mystified. “You want to play on your Xbox?” I ask. He laughs, loudly. “No, Anastasia, no Xbox, no Playstation. Come."

That paragraph was just brutal. I'm just not sure I can do it, runaway bestseller or no. What I may do is write my own housewife erotica to earn my own $20 million, but I am just not sure I can stomach this one. Life is short, and I already resolved not to read any more books that I knew from the outset would likely be bad.

On the bright side, I am patron 197 out of 334 on my library's waiting list -- they only have 12 copies, so I guess I have some time to decide.

Has anyone read it? Thoughts?

Oh my, O magazine, say it ain't so!

I was flipping through the June issue of O magazine recently when I came across the most shocking error. And rest assured, it was shocking -- just you wait for it. It was in Martha Beck's monthly column, this one titled "Charting Your Course." The article is actually really interesting, which is why it's a shame that the introduction -- touching upon the journey of Odysseus -- completely blunders the tale. Oh, I told you it was shocking.

She opens the article with, "Odysseus just wanted to go to Ithaca. No, not the one in upstate New York -- the one in ancient Greece. He dreamed of it the whole seven years he spent trapped on the island of the nymph Calypso. Eventually the pitying gods ordered Calypso to free him, at which point he managed to build a boat and set out on what he hoped would be a brief and pleasant journey."

Okay, so far, so good. But then...

"Ha. At every turn, Odysseus' travels were filled with surprises. He conquered monsters at sea only to find worse ones waiting on land. He encountered seductions that sent him half mad with longing. Finally, in the land of the dead, he got clear directions from a seer who, oxymoronically enough, was blind."

But, er, umm...the thing is, when he's freed from Calypso's island, Odysseus pretty much is at the end of his journey. All the events listed in the article have already happened to him; at this point, all he's got to do is get through a little storm at sea and a mini-vacation with the Phaeacians. The reason for the mistake is obvious enough -- in terms of chapter order, Odysseus is first seen sitting on Calypso's island (in chapter 5) before running around on all his adventures (chapters 9-12), but books 5-12 don't follow chronological order. But I didn't expect to see such a mistake in a major magazine. It's nice to see the Odyssey mentioned, I suppose, but it's also kind of a :( for classic lit.